Chromium based catalysts are used in the commercial polymerization of small alpha olefins such as ethylene and propylene. U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,200 to Carney et. al. describes a series of Group 6 metal-based ligand-containing olefin polymerization catalyst components which when in combination with a suitable cocatalyst and supported on an inorganic metal oxide or inorganic metal phosphate produce high productivity alpha-olefin polymerization catalysts. The present invention relates to an improved process for preparing such Group 6 metal-based, ligand-containing olefin polymerization catalyst components. For example, the half-sandwich chromium-based olefin polymerization catalyst component, Cp*Cr (CH.sub.3).sub.2 (pyr), where Cp* designates the radical C.sub.5 Me.sub.5 and pyr designates pyridine can be produced in high yield and in a pure form. This represents a significant advantage of the current invention over the type of synthetic procedure known to persons in the art. Previously published syntheses of Cp*Cr(Me.sub.2) (pyr), for example, as described in Example 15 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,200 to Carney et al. and in S. K. Noh et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1989, 111, 9127, require the use of the starting material CrCl.sub.3 (THF).sub.3.sub.1, where THF designates tetrahydrofuran. This starting material must be synthesized, typically by a Soxhlet extraction of CrCl.sub.3 with Zn metal in refluxing THF. This is both tedious to perform as well as difficult to scale up for commercial synthesis in order to produce CrCl.sub.3 (THF).sub.3 of sufficient purity for subsequent catalyst component synthesis. The current invention (as typified by Example 1) removes this synthetic stage and uses commercially available CrCl.sub.3 as the starting material for the catalyst synthesis.